Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!: Make Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality (31 page)

No job should ever be beneath you.

A factory floor is no picnic. At this one, the hot injection-molding presses were located on the first floor and generated a lot of heat; and heat rises, as we all know. The factory was not air-conditioned. In the summer, on particularly hot days, the factory could get close to one hundred degrees on the second floor, where the assembly line to package my product was located. Chicago summers can be hot, so everyone was dripping with sweat, working hard, checking details, trimming edges, and packing product. It was super uncomfortable, but unbelievably, we would all get used to it.

I felt bad because it was so hot. I brought in fans to help cool the space, and I tried to have lots of ice-cold drinks and special treats available to make the heat more bearable. I wish the factory could have been air-conditioned, but as I said earlier, it was almost a hundred years old. The women who worked so hard on my product during those hot days were amazing. They touched my heart and soul. I love them to this day. We were on the journey together.

One of the most touching by-products of doing what little I could to make these women’s workdays more pleasant was that they became protective of me. Every now and then, I’d get a phone call in the middle of the night, and in Spanish, someone who was working the night shift would say, “Hola,
Lori,” and then tell me there was a quality issue with what they were packing. They’d tell me to come in the next day, ask to do a surprise inspection, and look for boxes with a line drawn on them. Those were the boxes I should open. I was so moved that they cared enough about me that they would take the risk of contacting me because they wanted to make sure I was getting good product. They trusted that I would never betray them.

It was a two-way street—I cared about them, and they cared about me. Sure enough, when I’d do an inspection the next morning and open a box with a line drawn on it, inside would be organizers with slight scratches or that had something else wrong with them. Immediately, the foreman and factory owners would apologize for the oversight and promise to redo the order. I never stopped letting the factory workers know how grateful I was for the way they looked out for me.

To this day I’ll never forget the work ethic of a night foreman named Andy, who worked the second shift at the factory. He looked like Popeye. He had served in the navy and wore a crew cut. His arms were covered in tattoos and he rolled his cigarettes up in his shirtsleeve. His hands were workman’s hands—rough, covered in oil and grease. He was a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy, and one of the nicest, most caring people who worked at the factory. He often worked fixing the injection-molding presses, which are enormous machines that clamp together with tons of force while pushing molten plastic into the nooks and crannies of the mold. They’re hot and unwieldy, and they can have sharp metal pieces.

One night I saw Andy fixing one of the machines and I stopped to say hello. All of a sudden he let out a yell, and when he pulled his hand out of the machine, blood went flying. I started hunting for a clean rag to use as a tourniquet and shrieked, “We
have to get you to the ER!” But he replied, “Nah. I can’t leave.” Ignoring him, crazy with panic, I kept talking while hunting for a tourniquet. It was a bad gash.

“Andy, you’re BLEEDING! You’re gushing all over … I can’t find a rag.…”

As I started to think I’d have to rip up my own shirt, he said calmly, “I’ll be fine,” pulled out a blowtorch, and cauterized his own hand. I stopped only long enough to pull in another huge gulp of air and then started screaming again,

“My God, now you’re BURNED! We have to get you to the hospital! Now!”

And he looked at me with the faintest grin and drawled, “Nah, I do it all the time. Plus I can’t leave my team all alone. I gotta look out for them.”

Andy died several years ago, but often when I look back and think about his dedication and devotion, and about all the teams we had in the early days, I’m overwhelmed by the fabulous working spirit of these individuals whom I came to know and love.

Face Issues Head-on

You’ve got to be kind, and considerate, and appreciative, but you’ve also got to be tough in this business. I try to promote a team-oriented culture, and even a sense of family, at every level in my business, but I try not to let my personal feelings cloud my judgment when it comes to making decisions in the best interest of my company or my products. Once, after yet another surprise inspection revealed imperfect
product getting ready to be shipped out to retailers, I called a meeting with one of the factory owners. We decided to have it on the loading dock.

It’s always important to call out any problems or issues. Don’t be afraid to speak up and make sure things are done right.

I arrived first. I had already thought about the best way to address what was becoming an increasing problem of bad product knowingly being packed into boxes, but I didn’t want to alienate him. I looked up and saw the owner plus his brother and his son approaching me. The way they were walking reminded me of gunslingers approaching the sheriff for a showdown in the town square. As they approached, I said jokingly, “Wow, I didn’t know there would be three of you! Here come the Hauser men to beat up on me.” And one of them, whom I liked a lot, and who became a good friend, turned to the other two and said jokingly, “We’re going to need more men.” They knew they weren’t going to be able to get away with the status quo anymore.

THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY

When you’re an entrepreneur, you just can’t let anything or anyone get in your way, no matter how dire the situation. You can almost always find a solution if you try hard enough. And if you’ve laid the right groundwork, on those rare occasions when you can’t find a solution, you’ll find that the consequences are usually far less severe than you feared they’d be.

Put things in perspective, no matter what the crisis, and then move on.

Let’s say a container full of goods coming in for the holiday season gets waterlogged and ruined. That’s not something you can fix. You’ve got three thousand soggy units, and there aren’t enough hair dryers or fans in the world to dry them out. Gone is
gone. But you’ve been wise enough to get insurance, right? So you’re covered. So then what’s the worst thing? You lose sales. That’s a big deal, but your buyer will know it’s not your fault. You may not get holiday placement—sales results are key. But if you’ve built a good relationship with your buyer, you hope they will get you back on the shelves with your next order. You’re more likely to get a second chance than if you don’t have a good relationship. You’ve suffered a setback, yes, but you can work to change things around tomorrow.

DRIVING THE BUSINESS TO-DO LIST:

When problems occur, think out of the box. There is
always
a solution.

Make the people you work with feel valued and part of a team.

Show your appreciation for what they do.

If you make special requests, or need something in a rush, explain why so people understand why it’s important.

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BEYOND BRICK AND MORTAR

“There is no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs.”

—A
UTHOR UNKNOWN

Inventors today are so lucky. Throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the only way to sell your new product, unless you went door to door, was through brick-and-mortar stores or mail-order catalogs. In the last two decades, however, our options have mushroomed, allowing us to sell from the old stand-bys, as well as through TV, our own websites, online retailers, and social commerce sites. Interestingly, all of this e-commerce, which some might have predicted would weaken direct response marketing channels like television home shopping networks the way Amazon decimated bookstores, has instead only served to increase their power, prestige, and sales reach.